Many special effects have been used in the Star Trek franchise to immerse the viewer into its universe. Miniatures of space ships to create the overwhelming sense of the large vast space and flashes of light and dissolves to transport the grew over great distances in an instant, but the make-up effects of the franchise which have evolved with the show has a culturally distinguished immersion effect.
The Borg, which appeared during the Next Generation, is among the most dynamic make-up special effects of the franchise. The majority of species in the trek universe are organic and humanoid. In the original series the make up was quite basic with colored skin or pointy ears. Latex and prosthetic make-up were not quite fully developed at this point, but the evolution of these techniques can be most notably seen in the Klingong species. By the time the Borg came around not only were latex, prosthetic, and molding techniques being used, but other mechanical elements were being incorporated. These mechanical elements, which were used to make the Borg costume makes it one of the most dynamic, because to make this cyborg they made a costume of cyborg like stature.
The vision of this cyborg species is not dystopic such as the terminator, but rather a nightmarish side of human and machine interaction. At this period of the early 90’s when Internet technology was really starting to revolutionize the way we think about the machine; the social connotation of this new-networked machine attacked the idea of human individuality. Even thought each Borg is visually different from the other, they are all of the same conscious/drive.
What makes the Borg of even a more nightmarish vision is its way in which it creates gender. Durinda Wood who was the original creator of the Borg costume said of the Borg’s gender:
“We were trying to make them androgynous. I remember somebody - I think it was Rick [Berman] - saying they shouldn't be totally male or female. That was part of the scariness of them; you couldn't work out whether they were male or female.”
Around the same time as the Borg appeared on The Next Generation The Cyborg Manifesto was written by Donna Haraway. The Borg and Haraway’s cyborg have many similarities. Once such being that the “cyborg skips the step of original unity”. It is noted by Julia Witwer in The Best of Both Worlds: On Star Trek’s Borg that the Borg lacks any culture or history making them one of the best, and most efficient villains. The random parts that each Borg has attached also visualize this inessential origin. It was Durinda Wood’s idea to assign random parts to each Borg to make them look different from one another, and signify that when one part wears out; it is just replaced. This in turn means that the originality of the Borg is consistently replaced and disregarded.
The Next Generation episode The Best of Both Worlds part, I and II was said to be the launching point of the series to surpass (or at least make it up to the level) of its predecessor Star Trek: The Original Series. And, it was the Borg that helped the series come to this level, because of the Borg’s dynamic appearance and cultural immersion method of the current techno sphere.

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